Guest Post: The Noble Lie Of Government Healthcare

These words, spoken by U.S. President Barack Obama in various forms and iterations, have become a running joke amidst the rollout of the Affordable Care Act. All across the country, hundreds of thousands of citizens are receiving cancellation notices in the mail. The stringent requirements for insurance plans under the new edict are curtailing many individual policies. A simpleton can grasp the economics: you prohibit something, it goes away. And yet, for years prior, the White House ignored the oncoming train and is now slowly inching away from the wreckage.

This was not the unforeseen consequence of good-intentioned legislation. According to an investigative report from NBC, the Obama Administration was fully aware of the result its health care bill would have on the marketplace for insurance. A provision written in the original version of the law would have allowed for the grandfathering of existing plans that did not meet the new standards. However, the Department of Health and Human Services rewrote the stipulation to radically narrow the rule, so that an estimated “40 to 67 percent of customers will not be able to keep their policy.” Not one to be a wet blanket, President Obama continued to assuage the public and reassure everyone that their preferred insurance policy would not being going away.

This was a lie. And not one kept close-to-the-chest by a few high-level officials. House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer admitted that many in his party knew “there would be some policies that would not qualify and therefore people would be required to get more extensive coverage.” A presidential election and a litany of Senate seats were won based on the falsehood that America’s health insurance market would not be totally disturbed.

The admission of guilt may have ramifications for supporters of big government. In the short term, it undermines the President and the promises he makes going into the future. But voters are fickle and have a memory prone to lapses. When the subsidies start flowing, they will begin to smile again. The balancing act will be whether the boost in tax benefits outweighs being forced to pay a higher cost for what was once a cheaper product. Those who are net beneficiaries will be content while the losers may sulk but will ultimately accept the “new normal.”

The deceit behind ObamaCare is nothing new in the practice of governing. The state’s monopoly power makes it a natural target of suspicion. Even the most ardent worshiper of socialism is still wary that his nation’s controllers will turn on him. He keeps an ear out for fiction spun by his rulers but will not question larger injustice as long as he is fed well enough. Even with the preponderance of lies, there is still the naive hope “good folks” will soon come along who have a deep aversion to dishonesty. The white knight never arrives, but optimism prevails.

The happy voter is the one who refuses to grasp the obvious point that government serves as a vehicle for the worst in society to play out their violent fantasies. As Hayek put it, “the unscrupulous and uninhibited are likely to be more successful” in operating the machinery of total intimidation. It is always from the throne of authority that the worst deeds are accomplished. This includes mass aggression against property as well as the truth. The productive capacity of society is decimated enough by government’s necessarily parasitical operation; the public’s concept of verity is challenged by the various ministries of agitprop that disguise their actions as beneficial rather than schemes of plunder.

The false characterization needed to sustain Obama’s signature piece of legislation was another variation of Plato’s noble lie. In his widely heralded Republic, the classical philosopher wrote on the necessity of the few lording over the many to achieve harmonious social relationships. These “philosopher-kings” could govern best by spreading falsities that would have the “good effect” of making the underlings “more inclined to care for the state and one another.” One could call this a textbook lesson in the art of ruling over a dim and detached populace.

Perhaps the best exponent of the noble lie was the late, neoconservative king Irving Kristol, who held political theorist Leo Strauss as a strong intellectual influence. Kristol affirmed what many thinkers before him found when it comes to truth:

“There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.”

In many ways, this statement is completely accurate. In a democracy, the people must be corralled. They must get behind measures that ordinarily wouldn’t receive a lick of support outside of a few special interests. The naked, unvarnished truth is a dangerous weapon against tyranny. So it must be distorted to fit the agenda of collectivists, statists, dictators, and despots. Anything will do to assure for maximum support with minimum resistance.

Had President Obama been upfront about the full ramifications of his health care edict, the public may have turned. It’s one thing to apply for and receive a subsidy. It’s another to disrupt lives and force people to take action they otherwise wouldn’t. Outside disturbances are a nuisance to common folks trying to make the best go at their lives. Like a dog with its tail between its legs, the Administration is now backtracking on its own selling point. In a recent press hearing, White House spokesman Jay Carney, the quivering apparatchik of social democracy, was quick to ignore past statements and highlight the benefits of the health care bill. He told Fox News correspondent Ed Henry,

Well, let’s just be clear, what the President said and what everybody said all along was that there were going to be changes under brought about by the Affordable Care Act that create minimum standards of coverage — minimum services that every insurance plan has to provide.

So goes the guarantee of “if you like it, you can keep it.” As progressive columnist Clarence Page admitted to radio host Hugh Hewitt, it was “one of those political lies, you know.” The promise will eventually find itself lodged somewhere in the memory hole along with the guarantee of liberty in a security state. The state itself is a great lie. It purports to be the great savior of mankind. The political class likens itself to the great deliverance from struggle and despair. The reality ends up not as rosy.

Kristol was right on one thing: not everyone accepts the truth. They will self-deceive to feel comfortable in their own skin. It is this weakness the politician will manipulate for his own aggrandizement. Honesty and truth are always a virtue. And that’s why they are wholly absent from the halls of power.

Dad must have left the damn TV on all night, cuz when I walked by and turned it off this morning (CNN on mute), the news being reported was that those who couldn't keep their plans are being called "Obamacare's losers."

The sleazier lie is that your current policy is being replaced by a better, more compressive Obamacare policy.

My "better" Obamacare policy has a higher deductible, a higher total out of pocket threshold, horrible out-of-network coverage and excludes most of the convienient and speciality hospitals (cancer and critical care) that were included in my "bad apple" current policy.

My comment. They serve themselves. Two of the examples are politicians talking politically (lying) to help themselves at the current time to either get elected or avoid legal problems. The other politician lied for ideological purposes. to deceive the public (we know this now because of released information indicating that this President knew his comment necessarily correct).

That fabrication/lie was not even close to the same lie as Obama stated as far as impact this will have on Americans. Obama won an election based on this lie being repeated and the government was able to take over 20% of the American economy on that lie. Obama's transformation from a market economy to a centralized planned economy is formed off of this lie. The idea of socializing the rest of the country's assets can't be far behind if this is not stopped in it's tracks.

Finally, Nixon resigned the presidency on lies from Watergate that had far less of an impact.

It would be cheaper for me to buy a new fucking house than to provide an insurance poliscy for teh three people in my household. I get no subsidy, and even with a large deductible for a silver plan, I'm getting raped hard.

I don't think any of this is an error, it is all deliberate. If 90+ million will lose their insurance, and if folks are offered 'temporary' medicare until the system is fixed and reliable, Obama has reached his stated goal, everyone signing up for single payer. This could happen in January 2014 during budget talks. The GOP needs to come up with something now to prevent a mass migration to Medicare, what Obama really wants.

Obamacare is not "government healthcare". It's a lame attempt to force as many people as possible into the private healthcare system. A system which allows monopolies, cartels, price gouging, collusion, and poor performance. Let's give true government healthcare, aka single payer, a try before you criticize it.

Actually, their plan was to ncrease competition in the health insurance market, by allowing a nationwide market for it, rather than the current corrupt, state by state hyper regulated shit we had before Obamacare. They also mooted taxing employer based healthcare as an income, which it absolutely is, or tax equalizing somehow for individuals and self employed folks buying their insurance. The employer based insurance system being a legacy of control freak democrats during WWII, when they were enjoying a pretty totalitarian ride, by american standards.

Please let's do that, I'm serious. Free health care for everyone, no signup required. The rich could still pay top dollar for expert care, while the Obama-voting masses wait in line, describe their symptoms to a nursing assistant, and receive a bottle of generic antibiotics or painkillers with a "come back in three days if these don't work".